Services for tenant screening

[John D.]

Which services have you used for screening a tenant and what did they include?

I read about TransUnion Smart Move and RentPrep. Any positive and negative experiences with either? Besides these 2 have you used any other services and are satisfied with it?

Thank you

[Stephen White]

John D, the turnaround time is about an hour on the data. Since we make phone calls too, the verification portion of the reports typically take about a day, depending on the response time. If a landlord or employer answers on the first attempt it'll be faster than if we need to leave messages and follow up. But this is all we do, so we're good at handling that communication and getting faster response times. 

The RentPrep reports are different than Smartmove or others because we put more emphasis on the data that actually relates to a renter. By nature, renters have lower credit scores, so we put less emphasis on the credit itself. We're looking for tangible/track-able evidence of the type of renter they are, good or bad. This is found in evictions, judgments, liens, bankruptcies, criminal records and direct communication with those who have rented to them in the past. A credit report can't tell you if they received numerous noise complaints from neighbors, or if a forceable entry detainer needed to be filed to get them to pay the rent and narrowly avoid eviction. 

Think of sites like Cozy and Builium being like Uber. They're connectors putting you in touch with a driver (Transunion, Experian, Equifax). They don't actually drive anything themselves, they just make it convenient to find a driver and give you the platform to access them. So if credit reports are the biggest metric you're using to make decisions, it doesn't really matter where you go to get them, they're all coming from 1 of 3 possible sources. 

But if you accept the idea that good tenants don't always have good credit, or a bad tenant can certainly have good credit, there's more to look at than just a credit report. 

Different strokes for different folks. One isn't better than the rest, it comes down to your personal screening criteria and what you want to know about a prospective renter.